The impact of perceived child physical and sexual abuse history on Native American women's psychological well-being and AIDS risk.

Abstract

The impact of perceived child abuse history on 160 adult, Native American women's emotional well-being (i.e., depressive mood and anger) and AIDS risk was examined. How sense of mastery and social support might lead to women's greater resiliency was also investigated. Child physical-emotional abuse was found to have greater impact on depressive mood and anger and AIDS risk than did child sexual abuse. This finding was independent of current stress in women's lives. Women who were physically-emotionally abused as children had 5.14 times greater odds of having a sexually transmitted disease in their lifetimes than did women who experienced only marginal or no physical-emotional abuse. Moreover, consistent with the communal culture of Native Americans, social support was found to contribute more to resilience than sense mastery did. Reasons for the greater predictive power of child physical-emotional abuse compared with child sexual abuse in a growing number of studies are discussed.

Childhood and adolescent sexual abuse and subsequent sexual risk behavior: Evidence from controlled studies, methodological critique, and suggestions for research

“…Among Native Americans, CSA was related to having a greater number of STDs, although this association was no longer significant when analyses controlled for physical and emotional abuse (Hobfoll et al, 2002).…”

Safe-Sex Knowledge, Self-Assessed HIV Risk, and Sexual Behaviour of Young Portuguese Women

“…This measure is not meant to assess risk per se (although it has been found to be highly correlated with risk), but rather each woman's sophistication in assessing the STD risk represented by actual and potential partners. Higher scores indicate greater sophistication [31]. The Cronbach α internal-consistency reliability was not mentioned in previous studies.…”

“…Two items assessed whether the participants' heterosexual contacts in general, and their sexual behaviour in particular, placed them at risk of HIV infection. These items were adapted for use in Portugal from the Women's Health Study [9,31]. A question asked whether the women discussed HIV/AIDS danger and prevention with her partners, with the response format being a 4-point Likert scale (0-3: "seldom," "never," "with some but not all partners," and "with every partner").…”

Psychosocial and psychopathological predictors of HIV-risk injecting behavior among drug users in Portugal

“…The measures and their psychometric properties in this sample are described below. (Hobfoll, 2000;Hobfoll et al, 2002;U.S. Public Health Service, 1988, cit.…”

“…Six items assess knowledge of how to prevent HIV infection during sexual activities (Cronbach's α=0.83). (Costa, 2006;Hobfoll et al, 2002;Schroder, Hobfoll, Jackson, & Lavin, 2001, adapted to Portuguese by Costa & McIntyre, 2002) assessed whether the participants' heterosexual contacts in general, and their sexual behavior in particular, placed them at risk of HIV infection, response format being a Likert 4-point scale (1 to 4: none, low risk, moderate, higher risk). A question asked whether the participants discussed HIV/AIDS danger and prevention with their partners, response format being a Likert 3-point scale (1 to 3: with every partner, with some partners, never).…”